Concise Title: The Power of the Past (Italian Edition)

A middle-aged man in his forties, who makes a living writing children's books in Rome, is approached by a strange taxi driver. The taxi driver convinces him to listen to a "crazy" revelation: his recently deceased father, whom he had always believed to be a devout Christian Democratic general, was actually a Russian spy working for the KGB. From this moment on, the protective shield that the protagonist had painstakingly constructed around himself and his family begins to crumble.

With the collapse of his last illusion, that of the marital peace he had pursued for years, the writer discovers - or rather, doubts, without being certain - that he has always been different from what he believed himself to be, with a different father (a spy?), a different wife (unfaithful?), and a different past to come to terms with.

In this novel, which won the Campiello and Viareggio-Repaci prizes, Sandro Veronesi sets up an irresistible narrative machine - a machine made up of spectacular plot twists, detective novel-like movements, and comic-grotesque curtains on the "incredible" Italy of these years - and, at the same time, suggests to the amazed reader that the story he is reading speaks of nothing else but his own deepest life.

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